Potato salad Kickstarter raises $60K. Where will the money go?

A Kickstarter campaign for a $10 batch of potato salad has raised nearly $60,000 since its launch by an Ohio software company owner last week. The proceeds from the Kickstarter campaign could go to fancier ingredients, potato salad baseball caps, or a giant potato salad party. 

 An Ohio man who turned to a crowd-sourcing Internet site to help him pay for a batch of potato salad has raised at least $35,000 from the effort and says he's now considering a huge public potato-salad party.

Zack "Danger" Brown of Columbus says he turned to Kickstarter to help him finance the initial $10 effort. But six days into the campaign, he's raised money from at least 3,000 backers worldwide, and the whole thing has taken on a viral life of its own on the Internet.

All the attention has the 31-year-old co-owner of a software company with minimal sleep during the past 48 hours.

Brown tells The Columbus Dispatch (http://bit.ly/VUXmOG) that he did it for the "pure enjoyment and silliness of life."

"Kickstarter's a global community of millions of people who fund projects of all shapes and sizes," Kickstarter said in a statement. "There's no single recipe for inspiration."

Brown's campaign started last week with a small yet noble goal: "Basically I'm just making potato salad. I haven't decided what kind yet." 

"Update: We did it," the page read soon after.

From there, initial funding in hand, Brown proposed a series of ever-escalating "stretch" goals, including the use of "better mayonnaise," "calling a chef to get a better recipe," and "a live stream of the potato salad making." At the $3,000 mark, he promised to "rent out a party hall and invite the whole internet to the potato salad party." 

As of Wednesday morning, Brown has raised enough money ($58,855) to host nearly 20 such potato salad parties. He has appeared on the "Today" show and "Good Morning America," and is now giving out potato salad-themed hats for donors who give the campaign $25 or more. 

Some, including Slate, have suggested that Brown gives any profits he has leftover after throwing a potato salad blowout and giving away potato salad memorobilia to charity. Kickstarter doesn't allow fundraising goals to be set for charity, though it doesn't specify what campaigns should do with money past their fundraising goals.